China Implies US Hypocrisy Over Nuclear Disarmament

China on Tuesday ⁠urged the United States to fulfill its nuclear disarmament responsibilities after a draft Pentagon report said China was likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles in sites near the Mongolian border and showed no desire for arms control talks.

"As a super nuclear power with ‍the largest nuclear arsenal, the most urgent task for the U.S. ‍is to earnestly fulfill the special and priority responsibility for nuclear disarmament," Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular ⁠press conference in Beijing.

The U.S. should "substantially reduce its nuclear arsenal to create conditions for other nuclear-weapon states to join the nuclear disarmament process," Lin added.

In a draft report seen ​by Reuters, the Pentagon said China had probably installed more than 100 solid-fueled DF-31 ICBMs in the three silo fields close to Mongolia.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit, has said ‍China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power.

"We continue to ⁠see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions," the report said.

President Donald Trump signaled last month that he might be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said he was not aware ⁠of the Pentagon report, but said "similar ​hypes" had been seen from the ⁠U.S. before.

"It aims to find excuses for accelerating its own nuclear forces' modernization and actions disrupting global strategic stability," ‍Lin added.

Beijing had embarked on a rapid and sustained increase in the size and capability of its nuclear ‌forces, U.S. analysts said.

China's nuclear warhead stockpile was still in the low 600s in 2024, which reflected "a slower rate of production when compared to previous years," according to the Pentagon ⁠report.

But China ​was on track to ‍have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030, it added.

The U.S. is estimated to hold around 5,177 nuclear warheads.

"China firmly adheres to a no-first-use nuclear weapons policy and ‍upholds a nuclear strategy of self-defense," Lin said.

China "does not engage in nuclear arms races with any country."